The Second Turning Point
by Satinette
Summary: Every relationship has its seminal moments, turning points to new directions. These are the missing MelCole seminal moment scenes from The Plague, Cole's POV, which occurred after the last scene and before the tag.
1. Chapter 1

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The Second Turning Point  
by Satinette

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Every relationship has its seminal moments, turning points to new directions. These are those missing seminal moment Mel/Cole scenes from "The Plague," Cole's POV, which occurred (but weren't shown) after the last scene and before the tag. Spoilers for that episode and those which came before. References to my previous fics, "Hot Pursuit" and "I Know."

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Author's Note: For Mel and Cole, two people who are drawn together yet who are literally alien to each other, their first major seminal moment came in the Pilot when Cole brought her back from the brink of death. Their second came in "The Plague" after the last scene shown in the motel room and before the tag. Although the episode itself only gave hints at the tag's very end ("I'm kind of getting used to having you around." "And I'm kind of used to being around, Mel..."), it's obvious from how they were starting to view each other – from Mel becoming less quirky in her reactions to him to the sea-change in their relationship by the following episode ("The Beast") – that something profound must have happened between them. This is my take on it.

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Some Background Story Notes: Mel is an interesting character, although very little is actually learned about her past during the course of the series. Among the scant few references there are the following:

In "Trust" when Vic is telling her about Lina Tavoulis being "a bit of a party girl," Mel comments: "I can identify with that. Only without the money."  
In "The Plague" Cole notes: "Jess said that ... you took your father's car once without a license."  
In "The Miracle" Mel mentions to Cole in passing that: "My specialties in school were cutting class and picking up my teachers."

For more detail one must look to the series bible'. Here it's learned that when she was seven her father's company transferred him to London to set up a new division and he left her in the care of his mother. Within two years he had remarried and had another child and his new wife didn't want Mel around. Thus she was raised by her grandmother and only saw her father during summers and Christmas vacations.

Poor Mel. What a horrible stepmother she had, rejecting her husband's daughter so cruelly. And what a miserably selfish and disgusting excuse for a man her father must have been to go along with it and abandon his little girl. And he wasn't being very kind to his mother, either. (In "Breach" it was learned that she'd run a speakeasy. Since speakeasies existed during Prohibition in the 1920s and 30s, the woman had to have been quite elderly, well into her seventies at very least. No matter how much she loved her granddaughter, no matter how close they were, it had to have been a hardship for her). As an unwanted throw-away' child it's no wonder that Mel, as the bible' says, "grew up confused and aimless and spent her young adulthood going through a series of meaningless jobs and meaningless men."

All this not only explains a great deal about her, it's where the tale she tells Cole in this story comes from.

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Chapter 1

Her ashen face shimmered in front of me as I rushed to her side. She looked haunted, her hair a wildly disarrayed mess, her eyes bleakly huge in their sockets, blasted with soul-deep horror.

First with one hand, then for a few moments with both, I reached for her throat, for that strong yet elusively unidentifiable connection I've felt with her from the beginning, hoping that connection wasn't solely of my own imaginings and that she could sense it as well, allowing the comfort of my soothing energies to freely flow into her ungoverned and unrestrained.

But it wasn't enough, not nearly enough.

Or it wasn't what she really needed.

Her trembling hands moved to my face, small hesitantly fluttering touches that then landed in my hair and stroked across my neck before dropping down to my shoulders in a sudden vise-like grip. Ragged, broken sobs tore from somewhere deep within as she threw her arms around me and buried her face in my chest.

Unsure what she wanted of me in this unfamiliar Human embrace, what I should do or even where I should be putting my hands, I awkwardly slid one arm around her, finally deciding to place a hand at the small of her back.

Mel fit very well against me and was surprisingly easy and comfortable to hold, and in some small way I found that touching her like that seemed to provide me with a measure of comfort and reassurance.

Yet the acrid scent of her fear still clung to her, stinging in my nostrils.

Was I mistaken? Had I actually gotten there too late?

I carefully moved my hand up the length of her spine, tracing along the delicate nerve endings there, filling her with as much resonant warmth as I could as I tried to read her. But her species was still very new and wholly alien to me and the signals I was getting weren't at all clear.

"Mel? Are you all right?" I asked, dreading that she wasn't.

She lifted her head at that and hitched her breath and at first I thought that she had calmed and was about to answer, but then I realized that she was withdrawing in on herself, sinking into a state of shock. Whether this was because she may have been raped and infected, or whether it was due to my sheer viciousness during this first Collection she'd ever witnessed – or even a combination of both – I had no way of yet knowing.

Tevv had gone as amok as a starving lorcolm pulled off of its kill and my fears for Mel's safety in what he was trying to do to her – but mainly my rage at my own stupidity in allowing her to become the lure in this Track to begin with – had come to the fore in answer, surging up from that same dark place I had so recently forced it back into. It was a ravening beast, insatiable and unstoppable, turning me brutal in my methods. I had never wanted Mel to ever see me like that but her life had been at stake and I had to prevail against the Nodulian at any cost.

"Breathe deeply and just look at me, Mel," I told her, cupping her face, trying to force some awareness into the glazed and frightened blue-green eyes that were but a handspan from my own, unable to tell if my words were fully registering or how far into shock she might go.

Again her breath hitched, a little deeper than before.

"Yes. That's right," I encouraged. "That's good. Take another deep breath. Just breathe."

I've handled such traumatic reactions many times before and knew I had to get her out of there, take her someplace warm and safe and quiet and far away from prying eyes before the lethargy wore off and counter-reaction set in.

She looked terrible, yet to me she still looked very beautiful, strange alien creature that she is. Her hair had escaped most of its pins and fallen forward over part of her face, almost completely covering one eye. As I watched she automatically ran the shaky fingers of one hand through her wild circus of curls, pushing them back.

I felt a sudden strong urge to do that for her but I managed to control myself. Instead, I took hold of her hands. They were as cold as Enixian ice and seemed so very small and fragile in mine, yet somehow I'd never thought of them as such.

"We can't stay here," I gently told her, nodding toward the fast-cooling body of the battered and broken Human host. "People have heard this. They are coming."

She began to gnaw on her lower lip but gave no indication that she was aware of either me or of the cries of alarm and the fast-approaching footfalls coming from outside the motel room. Someone was even shouting to someone else to call the police but, from the distant sounds of nearing sirens, I was reasonably certain that had been done already.

Tevv hadn't gone either easily or quietly.

"Mel? Can you hear me? We have to leave here," I said. But she might as well have been sleepwalking for all her response.

I lifted her head from under her chin so I could fully look into her face again. When my eyes met hers I all but yanked my hand away as if it had been scorched. The blank emptiness her gaze had become was horrifying. There were no emotions there any more, not even fear.

She didn't even blink when I began to shake her by the shoulders.

Nothing. There was no sign that she was aware of me at all.

I hated to move from her side for even an instant but we were fast running out of time. I turned and gathered up her coat and purse, then quickly looked around to be certain that nothing telling would be left behind, wiping down anything she may have touched. By the time I turned back to her she was just standing there, staring sightlessly ahead, but she had picked up the kra'ait with its collected sample of Tevv's blood.

At least she's still capable of some positive reaction, I thought with profound relief as I reached to take it from her. She was clutching it so tightly to her breast I was afraid she might stab herself with one of its exsanguination points, but her fingers were locked, refusing to relinquish their grip.

"Mel? Please? Just let me have..." I began, but the words died in my throat.

There were three Humans just outside the door with still more coming, and then the unmistakable sound of metal against metal as keys were being tried in the lock. Our time had just run out and we had to leave.

Although I was weakened and wouldn't be regenerated for many solar hours yet I was far from being without options.

Taking her hand I started to move us towards the door to get into position, gratified that she followed my steps. At least I wouldn't have to carry her. Letting go of her, I continued moving ahead and then stopped as I realized that she wasn't following along with me.

I began cursing under my breath. Vardian is a very guttural language, perfect for cursing, and I think I used every epithet I knew as I returned to her side to continue walking her along. Again she automatically followed my lead unresisting and unquestioning, taking each step like a mindless puppet. Then as the door began to swing open I seized her around the waist, pulling her into zip speed with me.

The only thing those Humans might have been aware of was a vague distortion of the air and a brief draft as we passed, the sensation of something rapidly moving by them. They would never know what caused it, never even suspect.

Several moments and several city blocks away from any chance of discovery I dropped us out of zip, safe within the hidden shelter of the recessed entryway of a boarded-up shop. All my reserve energies were then depleted, but it had been enough.

I took a few extra moments to peer out from our sanctuary and check down Sheraton Street toward the motel. An unmarked patrol car went screaming by, its portable hood light strobing, followed by an EMS ambulance and then a marked patrol car. In addition to the authorities, multitudes of Humans were assembling to gawk at the mayhem we'd left behind, a favorite spectator sport of this species.

Even as I watched, more and more sirens were beginning to converge there, their red and yellow roof lights spinning, painting the night with bright revolving streaks. And still more were coming. Perhaps Mel's Detective friend was even among them.

While the day had been almost tolerably warm an unseasonable cold snap had come with the night's intermittent rain, the dampness sinking deep into my marrow as it began to rain yet again. I shivered, silently cursing this damp and chill little world. This was still the summer, the warm season in this climatic zone, yet even on what were called the hottest days it never became truly warm enough for me. But then, it has been many years since I've felt warm enough. I dreaded to think of what the cold season, the winter, would be like here.

Turning my full attention back to Mel I guided her deeper within the recessed entry. First I gently pried her fingers free from their grip on the kra'ait, then stored it within me before bundling her up in her coat. She was quite deep into shock by then, unresponsive and unawares, and I had to manipulate her arms into the sleeves and turn up her collar for her.

I found myself wishing that I knew her secret, the deep inner well from which the she had drawn the breathtaking courage and determination to enter the fray just to obtain that needed blood sample. It hadn't been fearlessness by any means for clearly she'd been terrified. I knew it had to have been something far stronger, something far deeper, something that refused to allow her to cave into her fears at the very moment when it counted. And I had to admire her for I was aware that it was the exact same core of strength and courage that had permitted her to invite me into her car at the beginning.

All the while I was trying to decide where could I take her and how we might get there. Her car was parked a good distance away in the alley behind Club Crucible and it was inadvisable we take a taxi there, especially with her in this state. Certainly I could pretend that she'd had too much to drink, but if she happened to snap out of it along the way there might well be a problem. The counter-reactions to trauma can sometimes be extreme and erratic, very emotional and even wholly irrational, the pendulum wildly swinging until it finds its proper steady rhythm and equilibrium is regained. And I knew that such would likely be the case with Mel because she is a high-strung and excitable female to begin with.

Either way, there would be a chance we'd attract too much attention – or at least be remembered – and I thought it best we attract as little notice as possible.

And if she didn't snap out of it by the time we got there, we'd have another problem: I can't yet drive.

It's almost embarrassing, really. I can pilot a star-cruiser through the thick of an asteroid belt but I'm having trouble mastering these ridiculously archaic vehicles. This world often makes me feel as ignorant and unknowledgeable as a newborn child but, in this place and within the culture of this primitive species, in many ways I suppose I am and likely always will be.

What I really wanted to do was take us directly home but the Watchfire was an even further distance away and, for much the same reasons of attracting unwanted attention or of being remembered, we couldn't take that risk.

It was then that I realized that we didn't have to go anywhere at all. This boarded-up store was abandoned, out of business, and we could probably stay right there inside for quite some time with none any the wiser.

Within moments I had the door open and carefully sensed the interior, finding it relatively warm and dry and, just as important, free of any electro-magnetic emanations that would indicate the presence of cameras or a security system. From the barren racks and empty glass cases pushed to the sides and the hangers scattered about on the floor, I gathered that it had once been a clothing store of some kind, but for now it would serve as our refuge.

I lead Mel in and by the light of an alleyway lamp filtering in through the high rear windows settled her on an overstuffed sofa-chair toward the back near the row of try-on rooms.

A Collection always leaves me on edge and more or less unbalanced, a highly unpleasant side effect of having the soul of another lifeforce travel through my own. I felt the usual strong need for solitude to allow the feelings and impressions to pass and give myself the chance to settle – but my taking that time alone to re-center from Tevv's taint was not an option. Instead, I tried to ignore its crawling sensation and busied myself with making Mel as comfortable as I could.

Knowing by then that she was always meticulous about her grooming, I removed the last of the useless pins from her badly messed hair and raked it out of her face, combing it back with my fingers and tucking it behind her ears as I studied her, trying to gauge how long she might remain in this withdrawn state.

Only a few more minutes? Perhaps even a few hours?

It was impossible to tell. For now she needed to be alone within herself and I had to grant due respect to that. Her strength was her own and it came from within, not from anyone else, and she just needed a chance to draw upon it and in her own time. There was nothing I could do except be there for her – _this time _really be there for her – when and if she needed me.

Because I was all too well aware that I almost wasn't.

From their first meeting Mel hadn't thought very much of Nestov, not liking him at all. Her instincts about him were, as I'm finding they are with many things, quite accurate. Due to the self-involved Desserian not paying proper attention as ordered and maintaining his watch over her, Tevv managed to spirit her away. I myself hadn't realized there was a problem until my sense of her proximity had begun to fade.

Fortunately, Mel is not just unusually stubborn and strong-willed even for a female, she is also very smart and resourceful and was able to clue me to her general whereabouts. But once in the vicinity my sense that she was nearby had become so strong, so clear, that the waves of her mounting terror crashed over me like the poundings of a heavy surf and scoured me raw, making it impossible to obtain a fix on her exact location.

But _had_ I gotten there on time? I asked myself again. Or had I been too late? Had she already been raped by the time I got there? Had Tevv just been finishing with her?

In my mind's eye I tried to visualize the scene in the motel room as it was when I came in: Mel's frantic struggles on the bed ... Tevv's hands pulling her skirt up around her hips and tearing at her clothing ... the weight of his body pinning her down, forcing her into submission...

I couldn't be certain about anything that was happening or that might have already happened beyond that, couldn't be certain if that was all there was of it.

But there was still a way for me to find out.

Again and again I slowly passed my hands over her, carefully scanning her from head to foot, seeking any hint of contagion, any traces of Tevv having succeeded in infecting her with the virulent disease he carried. But although I found nothing, although she seemed to be perfectly healthy and whole, I was so destabilized that I wasn't certain if I could trust my own senses.

I know all about every nuance of fear, from the inside and the out, from feeling it to causing it. Fear is one of my oldest and most stubbornly loyal companions, one that dwells deep inside me and, every so often, makes its presence known, always unbidden, unwanted and unwelcome. Usually I'm well skilled at controlling it, even harnessing it to my advantage, but it was mounting within me then, gaining its grip on Tevv's taint, and I was helpless to rein it in. It coiled heavily in my gut, its sour taste rising like bile in the back of my throat, crippling me, rendering me incapable of making myself calm enough, centered enough, open enough for a wholly accurate reading.

But for then I had to trust my readings for, yet again, there was nothing else I could do.

I claimed Mel's hairbrush from her purse, determined to staunch my impotent anxiety with activity, however mundane.

"I've used up all my energies, Mel," I told her by way of conversation as I carefully began to work the tangles from her hair. "You know what that means, don't you? It means I'm very hungry and I ... have to refuel. I have to eat. You don't want to miss that, do you, Mel? You so love to tease me about how much I eat..."

A fine, almost imperceptible tremor coursed through her.

Or maybe I just imagined it.

"Mel?"

There wasn't the slightest response, only a brief quickening of the rain outside.

Completely withdrawn by then she didn't even respond to her own name. I doubted if she were even capable of moving on her own anymore.

My hands were beginning to shake a little. I squeezed them together to keeping it from showing.

How could I have let her do this? I began to berate myself. How could I have let her be the lure on this Track, no matter that it had been her own idea and she had stubbornly insisted? Why had I allowed it? Why had I meekly permitted her to take the lead yet again, bowed to her wishes in the matter just as I'd done with Collecting Kaden only a few weeks before? _Why was this alien female causing me to disregard my common sense?_

I studied her features as though I might somehow find the answers there. By the alley's lamplight her hair was shining in a golden-red nimbus around her head. Her face was very pale with dark circles staining the areas beneath her eyes. And there was a small purpling bruise marring the left corner of her mouth, underscoring her fragility.

"I won't let anyone hurt you, Mel," I grimly promised her. "Not ever again."

While I accept full blame for endangering her by deliberately seeking her out, by manipulating her into taking me in and then by asking for her help, the fact remains that in this time and on this world she has become both my anchor and my refuge. She's all I have. And in having chosen to involve her I cannot betray the trust she has in turn placed in me to keep her safe from harm. I will do whatever is necessary, destroy anyone or anything and do any underhanded thing in any underhanded way I must in order to assure that.

I cannot fail her in this.

I cannot allow myself fail again.

I healed the bruise for her, then cupped her face in my hands to gaze into the emptiness of her eyes.

"You really can't hear me, can you, Mel? You're far, far away now, aren't you? ... It's okay... It's all right. Everything will be fine. I'm here. I'll always be here."

The instincts of this body told me to keep touching her, to maintain physical contact, to connect, and to continue speaking as if she could hear my every phrase and was interested in my every word. I gathered her against my chest, one arm around her slim waist, a hand in her hair, tucking her head beneath my chin to provide her with a sheltering cocoon, continuing to say anything that sounded soothing and comforting.

At least talking is another sort of connection. And in truth I hadn't the slightest idea what else I could do for her. Or for myself. So I kept on talking.


	2. Chapter 2

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Chapter 2

Near an hour later I was giving my voice a short rest, still with an arm around her and staring at the patterns thrown on the opposite wall by the light seeping through the rain-splattered windows, brooding on the past and the present and the possible outcomes of the immediate future. Time moved very slowly in the wake of this passive waiting and I found it hard to endure the silence filling each infinite second.

Random memories tugged at me, giving up their snippets of folly or wisdom. I was becoming increasingly out of sorts as the time passed, more uncomfortable than I've ever been before in my alien Human skin as I tried not to dwell on any one thought too long, my mind replaying all the incidences of fear, betrayal, anger, impotence, hopelessness, despair, and blunder upon blunder on my part throughout my life in an endless loop. There was no way I could ever push back the time to take back my failures, nothing for me to do but continue to wait. Each and every out-of-sync sound that intruded was causing me to tense until it could be identified and safely dismissed.

The walls of this place were paper thin, the store itself empty enough to be an amplifying sound chamber, making me an unwilling audience to the bitter argument resulting from the late and drunken return home of one of the building's upstairs tenants. The argument quickly escalated into a noisy battle, clear enough to hear every shouted word, every thrown object and then every blow, just as I then heard the wild mating bout in celebration of the apologies which followed before all finally settled into calm and quiet once again.

I was becoming more and more worried over what was happening, my imagination hatching a crawling dread that crept through the corridors of my mind, demanding the keys to every room. I've had to deal with friends and colleagues who've suffered from all manner of mental and emotional trauma before, but this felt somehow different from anything I'd ever known or witnessed.

Mel hadn't so much as moved the entire time we'd been there. She was sitting exactly the way I'd positioned her, her head on my shoulder, her hands folded in her lap, her eyes still staring sightlessly into the distance.

"Mel? Can you hear me?" I plaintively asked for what had to be the twentieth time.

From the way she was just sitting there she could have been made of wax.

I realized then that I was unconsciously stroking her throat but had no idea how long I'd been doing it, as though her warmth, her life, was vital for my continued survival. Moreover, I couldn't seem to stop myself. Primitive though it may be, I must admit that there is something truly astonishing about the touching of flesh.

Not for the first time I found myself wondering what her sense of my touch might be. Or if she even had a sense of it. She'd once told me that it felt _weird ... sort of nice but ..._ _weird',_ and usually she simply seemed to just allow it, almost as if she were granting me some form of courtesy.

It was then I first recognized that, from the very beginning, without any thought or question, I had been consistently behaving with this Human female just as I once had with my Nallia...

That strange thought froze in my mind, both startling and unsettling as I began to examine it.

Even among the most highly evolved species, no male can become more dangerous, more vicious, than one rising in defense of his mate. It taps into the deepest strata of the primordial core all life comes from, even we Cirronians. I was behaving as if that was how I was seeing her and it was exactly what I had been giving her, all that and more.

But why was I behaving like that?

More to the point, why should it feel so right to be doing so?

If only I could decipher what this elusive connection between us actually _is_, what it stems from, its source, I would know the answer. I was convinced of it. I closed my eyes a moment, feeling her soft skin yielding beneath the still constant rhythm of my hand, allowing my mind to touch the sensation once again until it rose in a multi-layered symphony of undertones and my senses expanded into it.

We Cirronians are both blessed and cursed with what we call Ancient Memory, the rich and detailed inherited engrams of our ancestors. My mind attempted to sort through those eons of surfacing memory, searching for an anchor of time or place or circumstance, some manner of reference however tenuous or obscure. But no matter how I tried to sift back through them, find the chord this connection was striking, there was ... nothing.

Nothing at all.

Yet of all the Humans I'd met she alone seemed to trigger something deep within me, the feel of her presence somehow different enough from the bland sameness of other Humans that I'd been able to recognize and distinguish it from the start. It had been enough to draw me to her side when I'd first arrived on her world, enough to embolden me to return to her later and seek out her help.

If not an actual memory, then exactly what was this? An instinct? But from where? And how could that be?

Every time I reached for it, tried to find the wellspring, tried to understand, it slipped away like a cunning wraith, defying my every attempt at analysis and leaving me wondering all the more if it were only a trick of my own mind.

So why am I so fascinated with this Human female? Why do I feel this urge – more, this abiding _need_ – to be with her, even though she's completely alien to me and I hardly even know her? The intensity of my response to her was – and still is – a continuing source of surprise and wonder. It's almost as if... as if our destinies are intertwined somehow, as if she will be instrumental in correcting a terrible wrong in my life that I will be unable to stop without her intervention...

Would you listen to me? I don't even subscribe to destiny'. And I sound like Bendal spouting off with another of his asinine prophetic dreams.

Yet every time I tried to think of a more rational explanation my mind kept returning to that same thought. I can't seem to convince myself otherwise and no other explanation seems to ring as true as that one.

No other explanation _feels_ quite as right.

It had to be in my own mind, I finally decided. It had to be. What I am right now is trapped in the dichotomy that often happens with morphing: I'm being unnaturally influenced by the embedded instincts of the lower order of life I'd made of myself, a primitive form that has nothing whatever to do with what I really am. It was the only answer that made any logical sense. It's impossible for a connection such as this to exist between us at all.

Yet still it felt so true, so real. So right. And the longer I maintained contact with her, the more I tasted of it, the more I was left wanting for the stronger and surer it seemed to resonate and draw me in.

As always before I reluctantly gave up trying to solve the impossible enigma and allowed my hand to drop, opened my eyes and again anxiously searched her face.

By that point her aura had become very still, so preternaturally so that I hardly had any sense of her lifeforce at all. Her eyes continued to stare straight ahead and right through me, seeing only a terrible emptiness that utterly denied my existence, that didn't even know her own.

Her features had gone slack and her pallor ... It wasn't just that she'd become so unnaturally pale. She seemed devoid of all color, almost transparent, as though every last drop of her blood had been leeched out of her body, all the life drained from her soul. The only visible sign that proved she was still alive was the steady rhythm of her pulse throbbing at the base of her neck.

"Come on, Mel! Snap out of it!" I blurted out, then winced at the harshness of my tone. "I am sorry, Mel," I apologized. "I didn't mean to sound like that. You're safe now. Tevv can't hurt you and there's ... nothing here to be afraid of. Come back to this world. Please?"

No reaction.

I took her hands in mine, over-riding the impulse to try shaking her into awareness or repeat _Wake up! Wake up! Wake up!'_ in her face over and over again until she became tired of my voice and stopped looking like one of those plastic mannequins piled in the store's back corner. By then any response at all would have been more than welcome.

"Mel!"

What else could I say? Or do, for that matter? I'm not a psychiatrist, and even if I were I knew very little about the psychology of this species, had no idea how to treat a Human in such a state. I'd gotten her away from the motel, had made certain that she was warm and relatively comfortable, and that was all I could really do for her.

Getting to my feet I let go of her hands, cringing as they flopped bonelessly on the sofa chair, each with a clearly audible thud'. I neatly repositioned them on her lap, and then took a step away from her.

Surely this withdrawal couldn't last too much longer...

Or could it?

Her empty staring was starting to frighten me. My mouth had turned so very dry that I had to keep licking my lips, although that didn't help at all.

I tried to convince myself that although withdrawal usually lasts only minutes, sometimes hours, occasionally it might last a few days or even a few weeks.

But I also know only all too well that sometimes a mind will flee for a lifetime.

The heavy silence was becoming stifling. I began to waffle between blind panic and this terrible sense of ... disconnection, as if I had somehow ceased to be real. I shivered again, suddenly feeling incredibly, terribly cold, and took several deep breaths, trying to calm down, trying to regain control of myself.

I had given her a glimpse of just how dangerous Daggon can be. She'd witnessed how I answered Tevv's brutality with my own, how I'd dislocated his elbow, wrist and shoulder, broken his collarbone and at least half his ribs, and had hit him hard enough to rupture some of his internal organs. And then she'd seen how I deliberately made his Collection as painful as I could. To tell the truth of it, I would've gladly drawn it out for many long minutes if she hadn't needed my immediate attention.

Was that what she had fled from?

Why couldn't I have just Collected him? Why did I have to make him scream in agony like that?

And far worse, why did I have to let her see how much I enjoyed being the instrument of his pain?

But I knew why. I could still feel Tevv's residue jangling along my neurons.

Hunting someone down who needs hunting down; learning their strategies and weaknesses; matching my wit and skill and strength against them; feeling that surge of adrenaline as the fierce joy of battle sings through my veins; and above all else, the feeling of power and triumph as a fallen opponent looks up at me in terror, knowing that they've been bested and that I'm the one to have done it.

I'm all too well aware of my love of the violence, of the terrible and wonderful addictiveness of the power that winning brings. It's barbaric and savage, I know, but it's the final confrontation at the end of a Track that I've always loved the most. So in the heat of the struggle, in seeing and feeling Tevv's desperation, his near madness, I had given in to my most beloved and despised of instincts and attacked without mercy.

And while that might make me a monster in some eyes, I really can't apologize for it. It was exactly the sort of thing that had to be done.

The silence was becoming more and more oppressive as I cleared my throat.

"Mel?"

Still more silence.

"So it's ... just you and me now," I ventured.

I knew that sounded depressingly lame, but what does one say to a Human in a condition like this?

"You'd probably laugh at me right now if you could," I continued, finding myself wishing she would. A little laughter, even one of her gently teasing remarks, would have been far better than her ongoing silence.

"Mel?" This time her name came out as a hoarse croak and I began to shake, could hardly breathe as a horrible sense of guilt and overwhelming loss engulfed me.

"I really don't know if you can hear me or not," I said, "But in case you can ... I want you to know that ... I'm not going anywhere. I'm right here and I'll still be right here for you when ... when you come back."

It was eerie carrying on a one-sided conversation with a living, breathing being who was behaving like a very poorly reanimated corpse.

That horrible thought made me reach for her throat again just to feel the connection of her pulse through my fingertips, even though it was plainly visible and the faint but real sensation of her lifeforce welling in the back of my mind all proved beyond question that she was still very much alive.

I removed my hand and rubbed the side of my face, resisting the urge to smash something,_ anything._ Rarely have I ever felt so helpless, so completely useless.

Again I took both her hands in mine and, yes, they truly were small and delicate, the fingers slim and finely molded. For an instant I remembered how they had felt on my Human body, so soft and gentle yet still so strong and sure. At some point I had just surrendered control of my body's responses to her without even realizing it. And there had been that wondrous yet terrible ache deep within, a sweet and languid smoldering lacing through my belly as an emptiness that cried out to be filled, my flesh beginning to throb everywhere she wasn't touching me, burning where she was.

A shiver of a different sort curled up my spine. The longing to be touched by her again, to feel her hands on me again, to have that sweet current of euphoria wash over me again and somehow have that emptiness filled became nearly overpowering. I longed for it perhaps more than I'd ever wanted anything else.

I knelt down before of her then, putting myself directly in her line of sight, still trying to get her to see me. Mounting despair made my heart feel like a dead weight inside my chest. I hoped it didn't show on my face.

"Mel? Please..." I found myself begging. "Please come back. I ... I need you."

She blinked, then rapidly blinked a few times again, and just like that she was simply there.

"Mel?" I said again, starting to rise, not quite daring to believe in the miracle of her sudden return.

__

"YOU GODDAMN BASTARD!" she shrieked, the sound part pain, part fear and part the bloodlust keening of an enraged animal as she surged up from the sofa-chair and violently shoved me away.

Off balance and taken completely by surprise, I was knocked back, slipping on some scattered hangers and falling against an empty display case with enough force to break it and shatter the glass.

Panting, her arms held stiff at her sides, her hands spasmodically opening and closing into fists, she glared down at me as I lay there in the rubble.

__

"WHERE WERE YOU?" she demanded through clenched teeth.

There is a Human saying I've heard, _if looks could kill'._ A picture of Mel at that very moment, with the unbanked fire hotly blazing in her eyes, her nostrils flared wide, the color fevered high on her cheeks, would be all the definition ever needed.

It was one of the most beautiful and welcome sights I've ever seen in my life.

"I was..." I started to explain.

__

"GO TO HELL!" she screamed, cutting me off, and then she abruptly turned and fled, slamming open the front door and bolting out into the night at a dead run.

Mel was on automatic now, barely knowing anything at all, operating solely on instinct. And her instinct, still deeply immersed in the terrors of that motel room, demanded that she flee.

I grinned, then began to laugh with relief as I extricated myself from the debris.

__

Mel was fine!

Then shouldering her forgotten purse I went to follow in the path of her Track.


	3. Chapter 3

****

Chapter 3

The rain had finally come to an end. Although it was the early morning hours, like any city of any world Chicago never wholly slept. As I Tracked after Mel we left the sounds of the motel circus of spectators, news media and police, of paramedics, crime-scene investigators, pathologists and the coroner's investigative team ever further behind. These were replaced by voices rising in angry argument mingling with the muted blare of dozens of TVs, stereos and radios drifting down from the buildings lining the otherwise quiet streets. Pedestrians were few in number and far more cautious than they normally would be in daylight. Now and again one or more of them would even cross the street to avoid me, just in case I might prove to be a threat.

If it ever even occurred to any of them that I was following after the woman who had just run by a few minutes earlier, no one asked any questions or tried to stop me or even raised any sort of alarm.

That's one big advantage this city offers me: unlike the cities of many other worlds, the inhabitants here mind their own business. If something strange or untoward is going on, Humans simply look the other way. Certainly not always an admirable trait, but useful under some circumstances.

Somewhere nearby a dog was barking, answered by another further away, and in an alley two cats were yowling in heated duet, disputing food or territory or breeding rights. The drone of traffic and the occasional rumble of the distant L' all mingled and merged to fill the night with a steady stream of constant background noise.

Closer at hand I felt the mental disquiet of another alien's presence scraping along my nerves, one of my fugitives – a Vardian – somewhere nearby, but I had no desire or inclination to investigate and pressed on, knowing that although I couldn't yet see her, Mel wasn't far ahead and had to be tiring.

Those knee-high heeled boots she was wearing were impractical for sustained long distance flight.

Soon I caught the scent of the Lake and of vegetation and I then knew exactly where I was. This was one of the areas Mel and I had visited when she was showing me the layout of the city.

I stood very still, senses tasting the night for the exact direction of her lifeforce.

Even with my vision the dark expanse of Grant Park could scarcely be made out through the heavy mist and haze now rolling in off the Lake and saturating the air. Its coils slithered around the trees like a living thing, lacing through the leaves and branches and undulating in a wooly gray blanket along the ground. It reduced the park's safety lamps to ill-defined silvery pools leaving plenty of shadow for anyone to melt into, muffled the sounds of the city and muted the noise of traffic moving along the lakeside, making everything seem faint and far away.

As always I could easily separate out the song of Mel's lifeforce from the few others in the vicinity for it was stronger, purer, more resonant than that of other Humans. Within moments I was able to obtain a fix: she had headed for the shoreline. And I heard her quiet whimperings long before I could actually see her. I called out her name as I neared, not wanting to frighten her by making a sudden appearance.

She was standing at the very edge of the water, facing out over the Lake as it frothed and lapped at her feet, tears steadily pouring down her cheeks. The frenetic turbulence I sensed in her aura told me that all wasn't yet right.

As I slowed my approach I called her name again and she whirled about, only to launch herself at me in a frenzy of flying fists, screaming, _"You abandoned me, you bastard! How could you do that? How could you leave me?"_ among a torrent of curses and epithets.

Since she couldn't possibly hurt me I allowed her to flail away for a few moments to leach off the worst of her fury, then seized her wrists to stop her. I'd had more enough excitement for one night. We both had.

__

"Mel! Enough!" I cried out, my own voice pinched unnaturally thin by the fear, stress and madness of the past few hours. "I'm here!"

The anger and terror abruptly vanished from her eyes, replaced by lost confusion. She looked pale and stricken as the energy of her aura began to calm and mellow to its dearly missed familiar hum.

She was back. Equilibrium had been regained.

Finally.

"Cole...?" She uncertainly said my name as a whispered question. Her cramped fingers loosened their grip on my shirt, then a tentative hand reached up to touch my face, seeking reassurance.

"It's okay," I said as gently as I could. "It's over."

She sagged against me then, exhausted, her forehead resting on my shoulder.

"Oh, God, Cole," she snuffled in a very small and agonized voice. "I'm so very sorry. I ... I hit you! _You!_ I ... I've never, ever ... Oh, God ... I'm so sorry..."

I was holding her very close, almost too tightly for her to move as she buried her face in my chest, pitifully sobbing and continuing to apologize over and over again.

Meanwhile, my shoes and socks were getting wet, uncomfortably chilling my feet.

"_Sssshhh._ It's okay, Mel. It's okay," I repeatedly tried to reassure as I picked her up and carried her back and away from the water's edge. The heartbreaking sobs were wrenching from her slender body in shuddering gasps so violent it seemed to me as if she might break apart. I carefully lowered us both to the sand and then just held her in a loose hug, stroking her hair and continuing to reassure, waiting for the last of the trauma's grip to dissipate.

"It's okay, Mel," I said yet again as her sobs finally began to ebb, pulling her yet closer against me to warm her and be warmed. "I know you didn't mean it and ... no harm done. I've been hit much harder than that in my life. Even my mother could hit harder than that."

Sniffling, she raised her head at that. "Your mother _hit_ you?"

"No. Never." I smiled down into her wide-eyed gaze as I smoothed the last of her tears from her cheeks.

She looked so very young, so very innocent, and so very vulnerable. I had to close my eyes a moment as a fist seemed to be clenching my heart and holding it tight, refusing to let go. I was so very afraid for her. What had ever possessed me to seek her out and involve her in this mess? I kept talking in an attempt to distract us both.

"My mother had endless patience with me. How, I'll never know. I was a very..." I was forced to stop then, groping for the proper word.

"Precocious?" she offered almost timidly.

"Precocious?" I repeated, carefully sounding it out. "What is precocious'?"

"It means, um ... that you were likely a handful."

"Yes. I was a very precocious child," I agreed, liking the word. "I was very skilled at hiding ... stowing away ... on the system shuttles. By the time I was five I'd been to every planet in Migar. And many of the moons."

"You were only five years old and already exploring the neighborhood?"

"Yes. By the time I was seven I'd even visited a number of the nearer systems. And I was on my first Track when I was nine."

"_Nine?_ You were Tracking when you were only _nine?_"

I shrugged. "It was more a matter of my ... following after a Tracker who was on a Track."

"Good Lord!" Shaking her head she began to laugh. "Your mother must've had remarkable restraint!"

"Yes. She did. But you should have seen her whenever she declared war on the saronth. Those things you really have to smash hard. She just hated them."

"Saronth?"

"Yes, Mel. Saronth are ... something like cockroaches. But bigger. And much, much uglier. And with ten long and very hairy legs."

"Oh, _yuck!_" I was gladdened to see that she was fully back to herself. "We're all doomed! Cockroaches have conquered the distant solar systems! They'll outlive us all!"

"My mother thought the very same thing," I said, resting my chin on the top of her head before asking, "Are you all right?" I still very much needed to hear her say it.

"I - I will be," she choked out. "But by all rights I guess I should be curled up and gibbering in a corner of a padded cell somewhere."

"What is Dante's Inferno'?" I then questioned to keep her talking.

"Dante's Inferno'?" she blankly repeated.

"Yes. A few minutes ago you damned me to something called the ... lowest level of ... Dante's Inferno'?"

"Oh! I ... I did?" She began to dither in that familiar way she does whenever she becomes flustered about something. "Um ... I guess I might have ... I mean, where else could you have heard it? Um ... Dante Alighieri was a, um, fourteenth century Italian poet. The Inferno is an allegory of the soul from his epic poem, _The Divine Comedy._ It's about a place we call hell, a ... um ... very hot place of fire and brimstone..."

"Fire," I sighed with longing. "Warmth. That would be good."

"Well, actually ... the lowest level is frozen solid," she dryly informed me.

"That would not be good." I was truly disappointed at hearing that.

"No. No, it wouldn't."

I felt an unexpected pang of loss as she then disengaged from my arms and moved a few feet away, finding myself oddly bereft at having the strange but quite comfortable physical intimacy of the past few minutes over with. She dug in her purse for a tissue to blow her nose then huddled down, hugging her knees to her chest to look out over the barely-visible fog-shrouded waters.

"Some useless, pathetic excuse for a partner I turned out to be, huh?" she spat in disgust. "Nothing but a freaked-out basket case in the clutch who then tries to beat the crap out of you ... God, I'm such a screw-up."

It took me only a moment to answer, the anger and self-recrimination in her tone allowing me to quickly make some sense of her references.

"It can happen to anyone, Mel. It's nothing to be ashamed of."

"Yeah, right," she mumbled. "Bet it's never happened to you."

"It has," I quietly told her as she looked over at me in surprise. I didn't care to elaborate so I kept the subject in the here and now. "No one is immune from trauma, Mel. No one. You were able to ... hold off its affects for as long as you had to ... And that's all that ever really matters."

"_Omigod!_ The blood sample!" she blurted out. "Did we –"

"– I have it," I assured her. "You did very well."

"I did?" she questioned, searching my face, desperate to believe.

"Yes, Mel. You did. You collected the blood sample and I Collected Tevv."

She nodded and looked away, nibbling on her lower lip as she digested that.

A strong breeze was springing up from off the Lake and starting to thin and tatter the fog enough for moonlight to begin filtering through, etching everything in a surreal dazzle of bright luminosity.

I nearly choked. The quality of light reminded me too much of the night I had come home and found them, found what was left of them.

"You entrusted that little Desserian creep to keep an eye on me, didn't you?" she suddenly asked. "I thought I saw him back in the Club talking with a woman."

With an effort I pulled myself away from those violent and morbid mental images of the past, returning to the present.

"Yes," I admitted, deciding then and there that I was either going to have to force Nestov into line or Collect him before he gave me any more trouble. "I am sorry. I know you don't like him but I ... I'm all alone here and I'm trying my best to keep you safe. I have to work ... with what is available."

"But you're _not_ alone, Cole!" she protested. "Don't you realize that yet? You have _me!_"

"Yes, I know I do but ... We can't do it like this, Mel. Not ever again like this."

"Because I freaked out on you, right?" she challenged.

"No, Mel. I told you. You did well. It's just that I cannot let you ... directly confront any of the fugitives again. I can't. It would be ... irresponsible of me. They are too dangerous and more than you can possibly handle."

"I managed," she said, her chin lifting in defiance. "And you got there in time."

"Don't make the mistake of having ... more confidence in me than I have in myself," I warned, perhaps a bit too harshly, then softened my tone to point out the obvious. "What of the next time, Mel? Or the time after that?" Her defiance was visibly deflating as I then added, "We can't take that risk, Mel. And I won't allow it to happen again. Too much can go wrong."

She mirthlessly laughed at that and shook her head. She seemed almost on the verge of tears again. "_Wrong!_ Dear God, is that ever an understatement! I couldn't get Tevv into the alley where you were waiting. And before I knew it, he was pulling me into a taxi and we were on our way to that cheap motel ... Then I ... I couldn't get through to you on my damn cell phone and ... Oh, Cole ... When he grabbed me I ... I've never been so frightened in my life! The plan we had was so neat, so perfect. I should've known Murphy's Law was bound to kick in and ruin it!"

"What is Murphy's Law'?" I asked.

She gave a derisive snort. "Anything that can go wrong, will."

I couldn't help but smile, finding that I was genuinely coming to like this strange Human female more and more. She had just been through a very traumatic experience, was still recovering from it, yet she managed to retain a sense of humor about it.

"This Murphy must be very wise," I commented. "That is one of the Universal Laws."

"But I do want to help you, Cole! I really do! In every way I can. And I promised you that I'd –"

"– You _are_ helping me, Mel," I assured her. "More than you can know."

"No, I'm not! Not really. I –"

"– Yes, you are, Mel. You are."

"How?" she bitterly demanded. "By teaching you how to read? How to handle currency? How to drive a car? You learn things so damn fast that soon there won't be anything left for me to teach you any more!"

I could just make out the shine in her eyes, revealing scores of complex shadings and highlights, a glimpse into the heart of her true self unlike any she'd ever permitted me before.

And at that moment I realized a great truth about her, one that well explained why she had so willfully put herself in harm's way and why she was still being so insistent, even after all she'd just been through: Mel was a woman who desperately needed to feel that she mattered, needed to feel wanted and needed. Why this was so I didn't know, but that was the part of her soul that I had unwittingly connected with in the beginning.

And she was now becoming anxious that it soon might not apply.

But even so, to allow anything like this to happen again would be insane. And while insanity and I are quite well acquainted, I knew that if I couldn't get her to understand and accept this, for her own safety my only option would be to take my leave of her and continue hunting the fugitives alone.

That thought really didn't sit well with me at all.

"I do not always need a teacher, Mel," I carefully told her.

"No. No, of course you don't," she agreed. "But I –."

"– And I'm not a child needing protection from all the evils of your world," I added, knowing I was repeating myself and wondering if this would always be my refrain with her.

"Then ... Then what do you want of me?"

And _there_ was the real question. What _did_ I want of her?

How many times in life does reality so far surpass any fantasy you've ever had that it makes a mockery of your own imagination? I had sought only her help and had found in addition something infinitely finer, infinitely sweeter, something far more precious. I had found someone who was willing to open her life and make a welcoming space for an alien stranger, someone willing to unstintingly share the warmth of her caring and friendship and look out for me.

But with so little knowledge of what my world is actually like, what my life is and has been like, how could she possibly understand all it meant to me to be living with someone again for the first time in so many years? To have someone there waiting for me to come home? To have someone who cares _if_ I come home? To once again be part of a House? And how could I possibly tell it all without resorting to convoluted explanations of explanations to bridge the gap between our worlds?

The best path in anything is usually the simplest. So I told her the truth, or part of it at any rate, the part that could adequately translate between our very different languages.

"You have given me a home ... to come home to," I said, unable to think of any other words that would do as well.

"A home to come home to'?" she skeptically repeated. "And that's enough?"

"That is far more than enough, Mel. Far more than ... than I deserve."

"Alright," she grudgingly allowed after mulling it over. "If you say so. And you're probably right. First it was Zin ... Then Tevv ... As much as I might like to be, I'm not Wonder Woman. And I'm certainly not a commando. I'm only a civilian barkeep. Maybe we'd both be better off if I remain more in the background so you can do your job without having to worry about my safety." Before I could so much as sigh with relief her voice then hardened as her defiance returned. "But I'll do better the next time! I know I will! So if you expect me to just stay home all the time waiting and worrying and cooking dinner, _forget it! _ We're a team! And that's not what teamwork is about."

I reined in my frustration. Mel can truly be an inordinately willful and stubborn female sometimes, but I know that at least some of it is a matter of her over-compensating for her fears and self-doubts, as well as her shame over having both. Again I tried to get her to understand.

"I'm a Tracker, Mel," I painstakingly began reminding her. "It's what I do, what I am. More, I'm also a field worker. Most aren't and don't want to be. I wield a Collector. Most don't and have no wish to. Most do their Tracking from afar and never directly engage with the ones they're hunting. That's left for those like me who can and who do. It's the Hierarchy. It's the way it should be done, the way it must be done, even here on your world."

"Okay! Okay!" she groused, reluctantly beginning to accept the sense in what I was telling her. "I get it! I know. You're the expert here. Even I have to admit that."

"And I do need you, Mel," I hastened to add, reaching for her throat to underscore how much I meant it. "Very much. But as you said, you're a civilian. From now on, whenever I bring you into the field it will always be ... when you can work with me, at my side ... so that I can watch over you. I can't allow you to become involved with any of the fugitives in any other way."

"Right!" She sighed and faintly nodded, finally capitulating. "Guess that means I shouldn't be volunteering myself for dangerous missions anymore, huh?"

"Yes, Mel. Thank you. We will be able to work together much better that way." Pleased and very relieved, I then put on my most innocent expression. "Besides, I wouldn't want to miss too many dinners."

That earned me a hard glare and a scowl, but then Mel rolled her eyes and laughed.

I so love hearing her laugh.


	4. Chapter 4

****

Chapter 4

Mel and I sat in the cool sand in companionable silence as we lazily watched the rest of the night pass and the moon moved ever lower in the western skies. She seemed in no hurry to go anywhere and I, of course, would never leave her. I had the sense that there were still some things she wished to talk about, things she was troubled by, but I didn't know what they were so I waited, knowing she'd get to them in her own time.

The breeze was steadily warming and it had picked up strength, tattering the last of the fog into swirling wisps and rippling the water into a restless dance of small choppy waves. The lights of all manner of boats and ships moving out in the Lake soon became visible and many clusters of whitecaps actually proved to be flocks of gulls spending the night floating upon the water.

I sat back and looked deep into the midnight vastness above, searching out all the places I've been. The stars were a poor imitation of how they really are in space and most couldn't be seen at all, but Migar was there.

For the first time I found myself wondering if I would ever know her light again.

"We usually call the warm, mild and hazy weather we get after the Labor Day Weekend Indian Summer'. But it really isn't," Mel told me, breaking the silence. "Technically, that term is for the period of warm weather which often follows the first frosts of late autumn." She grinned at me. "Before you came along, I wasn't aware of how much useless information I had managed to store in my head."

"Why Indian'?" I queried, thinking of Earth's geography.

"_Hmmm_ ... Got me there, Cole. I'll have to look that one up."

She pushed her breeze-tossed hair out of her eyes as she followed the path of a distant freighter.

"The way he ... Tevv ... the way he screamed... " She hesitantly said. "It was ... It was like a body and soul being ripped apart."

I said nothing because it was quite an accurate assessment and there really wasn't anything for me to say.

"Is it ... Is a Collection always like that?"

"No. Not always," I simply answered. "I can make it a very easy and gentle thing."

She became very still.

"But you made the choice not to do it that way, didn't you?"

Uncomfortable with the question, I looked away.

"And you lied to me, didn't you?" she continued. "You told me that you don't take life. But you have." Although I thought she sounded more annoyed than angry or accusatory, I could feel that she was now studying me like a herd beast will study a predator, watching to see what he might do. "And I think you've likely done so more than once. Am I right?"

"It was not ... a lie," I reluctantly replied. "Cole has ... never killed."

I hoped she wouldn't want to know how many times Daggon had.

Or why.

Or how.

If she asked I would have to tell her.

Silence unraveled in a long skein of sudden and unfamiliar tension, measuring the gulf between us.

"Vic killed a man during a robbery shootout about a year ago," she finally said. "Saved his partner's life, probably his own as well. But he still sometimes has really bad nightmares about it. Not about how close he came to getting himself killed, but about having killed someone."

I nodded, understanding perfectly, very glad that I never have to sleep and thus never dream.

Taking a life is such a frighteningly simple thing to do, yet it devours the very core of one's soul, piece by piece, bit by bit. And I've learned all about killing, for the best of reasons, for the worst of reasons, for any reason, for every reason, and even for no reason at all. There are times I've killed when, if I had known then what I know now, I would have somehow found a way not to. Those memories, those events, those I killed, still haunt me and always will. Some far more than others.

But as with cops everywhere, sometimes one does have to kill. Sometimes death is the price of a Track. Sometimes it's even necessary, the only thing you can do. It is unrealistic to ever pretend otherwise, to insist that it cannot happen, let alone to expect that it will never happen at all.

Yet if I slept I would never have dreams. I would only know nightmares.

Her fingers suddenly dug into my arm. _"Dammit! Don't shut me out!"_ she snapped, her blue-green eyes brightly flashing in the moonlight.

I stared at her in surprise. "But, Mel, I ... I'm not."

"Oh, yes you are! Every time who and what you were on your own world, who you really are, comes up, you shut me out! _Don't!_ It isn't fair!" Her expression softened and her grip loosened. "I really have to know who you are, Cole. I think I deserve that much."

My mind snapped back on instinct, that ancient caution slipping up on me unawares as I fought the urge to do as she'd bid and tell her, preferring the yawning darkness to summoning up my past and throwing it in her face. Mel knew so little of Daggon, only what I'd told her. And I didn't want her to know. Not ever. To her I'm this someone she'd named Cole, someone very different, someone I'm trying very hard to live up to.

So why this strong compulsion to reveal all? Even the idea that I wanted this alien female to truly know me was astonishing. And very dangerous. Information is power and should never be given away. It has nothing to do with trust. I find that I do trust her and have from the beginning. But to let her know everything I am, everything I've been, would serve no purpose and be the greatest of follies, not something I should ever even think of risking.

"Please don't do this," she gently coaxed. "You asked me for my help and guidance and I'm giving it to you. As best as I can and as much as I can. I confess that I don't always understand ... the whys or the hows of it all ... Hell, much of the time I don't even know what you're doing. But I'm giving you my help. All I'm asking for in exchange is that you be open with me. I don't think that's so unreasonable."

Not knowing what to say, still reticent to say anything at all, I stared into the face turned so trustingly and expectantly up at me, held captive by the simple press of her fingers.

"Please," she asked again and I could hear the ruefulness in her voice. "I can't fathom a hundred light years and all these different Migarian peoples and cultures you tell me about. I'm having enough problems with going around the block and trying to deal with Human peoples and cultures. But even if I can't understand it, I can accept it. All of it. If you'll just let me. Couldn't you at least give me the chance to try?"

Acceptance. A single word. Far sweeter than understanding, far more precious than mere forgiveness. It was a nectar I'd once received from Nallia. But it hadn't been easy for her. And it hadn't happened quickly. And now this Human female was offering it up to me like a gift.

It might be better if she knew, I thought. Certainly not all of it – even I have a difficult time with all of it – but enough of my past as it came up, as it had just then, and she could do with it as she would. There were lies enough between us already – not spoken lies, but ones made up of my silences and the things I'd avoided saying.

I became aware that she was patiently waiting for me to speak and that I was still lost in the depths of her eyes. I looked away and swallowed the lump that had formed in my throat. I knew then that those eyes of hers would haunt me long after I was gone from her world, perhaps for all that remained of my life.

I took one of the deepest breaths of my entire breathing career and slowly let it out.

"Back when Zin and I ... were first becoming friends," I hesitantly began, "I remember telling him that revenge can never ease one's pain, that it changes nothing and ... and it can never accomplish anything.

"His answer was that it didn't have to, that vengeance is its own reward.

"Like most Cirronians, I ... I just couldn't see it, couldn't really understand.

"But that was only because I didn't know just how mind-numbing and obliterating pain and grief can really be, how losing ... everyone you love can ... distort the very fabric of your soul, can drive you beyond any definition of mad, can make you ... make you do things ... make you no better than the monsters you're hunting.

"I know that the emptiness you feel ... can never be filled by revenge. Or by the rage and hate that fuel it. I've always known. All just leave you feeling ... colder ... emptier...

"But now I also know that things aren't always that simple..."

"This was when your family was murdered," she said, so softly that I almost didn't hear her.

Out of all the things I could have told her about, why I had chosen to tell her of this festering black hole at the center of my life, I still don't know. But even as things best left buried began to crawl to the surface I pressed on, if only to finish what I'd started.

"... Sometimes ... sometimes vengeance is the only balm there is for grief ... the only way you can hold the guilt at bay ... the only way you can keep from being completely overwhelmed, paralyzed, annihilated ... regardless of the hideous taste it leaves you with. I've learned that sometimes it's all you have left. And I've learned that sometimes ... sometimes it's all you can ever hope to have."

I fell silent, not knowing what else to say or what was going to happen next. I could feel her questions – dozens of them, hundreds of them – circling around me and willed her not to ask them, hoped against hope that she wouldn't. I never want to confront the image in that mirror again.

Surprisingly, it was as if Mel had read my mind for she said nothing at all. Instead, she started to reach up to touch my face, then stopped. With the return of her reserve she was more comfortable in taking my hand instead.

For a long few minutes she remained silent, seemingly absorbed with tracing the lines on my palm. Twice she started to say something, each time faltering with embarrassment after only a few syllables. I hadn't a clue as to what she was thinking and that filled me with a nameless dread.

"I wouldn't know about Cirronians," she finally began in a hushed and pain-filled voice, still not looking up from my hand. "But most Human men are easily manipulated. Once the blood leaves the brain to pool further south they completely lose all powers of coherent thought. My father was no exception. He married a woman who didn't want me around as a constant reminder of his first marriage ... And he was more than happy to oblige her.

"He wouldn't hear that the few months of summer, the few weeks of Christmas vacation, and a long distance phone call or two every week were not enough for a father to be a daddy ... Basically, I grew up without having him around, even though I very badly needed him ... Especially since I didn't have a mother.

"My grandmother was ... Well, she was my grandmother, after all, a woman well into her seventies saddled with the responsibilities of raising the seven year old child her son had dumped on her. I know she loved me and that she did her best – and I loved her dearly in return – but there was no way she could've possibly been either mother or father to me..."

She trailed off for a few moments, following her threads of memory, leaving me more than just a little perplexed – as well as not liking her father. On my world no male would ever dare disrespect his mate's memory or disgrace himself by abandoning her orphaned child. It's just never done. But it's something that seems to be quite common here, done even by males who are otherwise obsessed with their own paternity.

While I tried to puzzle out the logic of that, Mel was quietly muttering to herself. The only thing I clearly caught was: "I can't believe I'm going to tell him this."

"Mel? You don't have –" I began, wanting to spare her any further embarrassment.

"– Oh yes I do, Cole," she grimly told me. "I really do."

She released my hand and glanced up at me just long enough for me to see the determination in her face, then she looked back out over the water. Her lower lip was quivering and by her aura I knew she was distressed and still in pain, but she was strong enough to hold back any tears.

"Just ... Please, Cole. Just don't repeat any of this to Jess. Or anyone else. Okay? These things don't exactly make for my finest moments."

Wondering what she had to say, I promised her that I wouldn't. She didn't seem to talk about herself any more easily than I did, so neither of us had ever pried and I knew very little about her. I decided to not interrupt, to just listen to her story take shape.

She nervously caught her lower lip in her teeth, then continued, looking out over the water the entire time.

"Anyway, when I reached my mid-teens I rebelled. Big time and in the very worst possible way, directing my hurt and anger at my father onto myself. I did a lot of dangerous and stupid acting out back then ... Ran with a fast and loose crowd ... Smoked cigarettes, stayed out all night, cut school, shoplifted ... Among other things ... Too much casual sex ... Too much alcohol ... Even some drugs, if you can believe that. The usual Good Time Party Girl' routine, as it's sometimes called, although there's nothing good time' about any of it. I was all screwed up, out of control and the despair of my poor grandmother.

"I didn't come to my senses, didn't realize how self-destructive my behavior actually was, until I was nearly twenty. Looking back, I often think it's amazing that I didn't end up in jail or become infected with AIDS or get pregnant. Hell, it's even amazing I'm still alive. Not too many in that crowd were as lucky as I was, you see. But the point is, I'm now the woman my grandmother raised me to be.

"I'm well aware that there's a great deal I _should_ have done differently. But at that period in my life, with the way things were and with the way I was, there really wasn't anything that I _could_ have done differently.

"Could' and should' have two very different meanings and I try very hard not to ever confuse them.

"And if anyone dared to judge me now by what I was like back then, I'd be horrified because that bitter and angry teenage girl no longer exists, although I needed her to get to where I am today."

Her unexpected touch on my arm felt electric, an astonishing jolt of pure pleasure that left me slightly dizzy. She had turned to look up at me again and my mouth went completely dry.

"Cole ... I know that my life, what I've done, what I've experienced, isn't even remotely comparable to what you've been through and I'm sorry if I bored you with it. But what I'm really trying to say is that I can't pass judgement on the things your pain and your anger may have driven you to do. It wouldn't be fair and I simply won't do that. I can't. Understand?"

The longer we stared into each other's eyes, the harder it became for me to look away. Somehow, in a way I still can't explain, I didn't feel like myself anymore. But if that were really so, then who was I? What was I becoming? What had all I'd seen, all I'd done, actually done to _me?_

I was bombarded with such an outpouring of conflicting thoughts and emotions it almost became a physical ache. I knew that I didn't want her pity, but I wasn't even certain if that's what she was offering. I hadn't the slightest idea of what she wanted from me – nor was I at all sure what I really wanted from her. I still couldn't understand the nature of what was binding us together and nothing was staying put anymore. I couldn't rely on either my instincts or my Memories and I had nothing left to hold on to, no knowledge or experiences with anything like this to guide me.

Anything and everything I used to be so very sure of was shifting beneath my feet, taking away my sense of balance.

And it was far too late for questions or second thoughts about any of it. Either I trusted this bond I felt with her, or I was completely and totally lost – in which case it wouldn't matter what I then chose to do.

But it had been so long since I'd allowed myself to even think of feeling anything, let alone of feeling it so intensely, of wanting anything at all, that I was letting myself forget the hard lessons I've learned...

No. That isn't quite right.

Something between Mel and I had changed and I was deliberately choosing to ignore all those lessons. I was reacting to her and I couldn't do anything about it. Most surprising of all, I found that I really didn't _want_ to do anything about it. I realized that on some fundamental level we were making an even greater commitment to each other than we'd made before but for some reason it felt like the right thing to do and it was what I wanted.

The only thing I knew with absolute clarity was that I couldn't _not_ be with her.

And that I very much needed her to want to be with me.

Nothing about those needs felt wrong or perverse. On the contrary, they felt more right than anything I've ever known.

Finally, drawing on all my willpower, I managed to drag my eyes away from hers and looked off to the lightening eastern horizon. The sky was just beginning to redden where it met the water, fading upward into a golden-green bank before merging with the cobalt blue vastness sprinkled with dimming stars.

"It will be dawn soon," I noted, wondering why I felt so very mumble-mouthed. "A stillness such as this always ... always comes before star-rise on every world."

"_Hmmm? _ And I'll bet you're famished," she lightly teased in that way of hers as she lazily stretched her arms out over her head to dispel the night's kinks.

"Yes," I admitted. "Yes, I am very hungry."

"Knowing you, I would think so! Tell you what. We'll catch a taxi and get the car. There's a diner near there where we can go for breakfast." She gave me one of her playful grins as we got to our feet and began to brush the sand off our clothes. "They open at six and they have this great All You Can Eat' breakfast smorgasbord. I can't wait to see the look on their faces by the time you've had your fill."

I reached over to caress her throat a moment, reconnecting to that special yet unidentifiable bond that had brought us together, feeling her vibrancy and her strength and allowing some of that strength to flow into me. I was grateful for her presence in my life; grateful that she was safe and whole; grateful that the witnessing of Tevv's agonized Collection hadn't made her send me away from her forever.

I could only hope that the knot that bound together the delicate threads of our lives would be enough for us to face whatever the future had in store.


End file.
